Dental procedures, especially dental procedures using air abrasion systems, produce a number of particulate by-products which must be collected with evacuation apparatus. For example, when an air abrasion system is used to reduce a tooth, the process produces not only spent abrasive material but also portions of tooth, blood, gums, and other debris. This debris must be removed during the dental procedure to allow the dentist to monitor progress and to make the procedure more comfortable to the patient. During air abrasion procedures, it will be appreciated that while most of the abrasive material collects in the mouth of the patient, some abrasive material deflects out of the mouth and into the surrounding area. As a result, evacuation apparatus is needed which removes debris from both inside and outside the mouth.
Evacuation hand pieces are known which attempt to provide both intra- and extra-oral evacuation. These devices typically have a larger diameter cylindrical handle portion with a coaxially mounted smaller diameter tube. The tube is sized for insertion into the patient's mouth while the handle portion has holes extending through an end thereof and is generally positioned just outside of the mouth during dental procedures. These hand pieces are connected to evacuation means such as a vacuum pump to create a suction flow through the hand piece. Accordingly, suction flow is created through the tube and the holes located in the handle portion.
Unfortunately, conventional evacuation hand pieces do not adequately collect debris from both inside and outside the mouth. The area of suction created outside the mouth in such hand pieces is limited by the size of the handle portion. The handle portion must be small enough to be held and also must be small enough to allow the dentist to adequately see inside the mouth during the procedure. It will be appreciated, however, that the extra-oral suction area created by the hand piece is directly related to the size of the handle portion, and therefore a smaller diameter handle portion evacuates a smaller extra-oral area. Accordingly, conventional evacuation hand pieces are either too big and therefore cannot be easily held or used during dental procedures, or are too small and collect only a fraction of the debris which deflects from the mouth.
Conventional evacuation hand pieces further fail to maximize extra-oral suction from all areas of the mouth. During some procedures, the evacuation hand piece must be placed near the corner of the mouth and therefore a portion of the holes in the handle portion are disposed near the cheek of the patient rather than the mouth. Debris, however, deflects out of the mouth and therefore the holes disposed over the cheek are ineffective to collect debris. Accordingly, conventional evacuation hand pieces do not maximize the effectiveness of the extra-oral suction holes.
Furthermore, the extra-oral suction provided by conventional evacuation hand pieces is localized in that it does not address debris escaping from the other side of the mouth. During a dental procedure, the evacuation hand piece is typically placed on a first side of the mouth while the dentist works on a second side. As noted above, a handle with holes is typically provided in conventional hand pieces for creating extra-oral suction. The suction produced by such hand pieces, however, simply collects debris from the first side of the mouth. As a result, debris escapes through the second side of the mouth unimpeded by the conventional hand piece.
Furthermore, conventional evacuation hand pieces are overly cumbersome to sterilize between patients. During dental procedures, the evacuation hand piece is positioned so that the smaller tube extends into the patient's mouth while the handle is located near the patient's mouth. Conventional hand pieces have an integral tube and handle assembly and therefore both the tube and handle must be sterilized between each use.